Hacked!

I am hacked! The reason for this state of being is that my e-mail was hacked this week. Apparently, Yahoo! had a number of security problems exposed this past week, which resulted in the hacking of a number of e-mail accounts - mine among them. I discovered this problem on Thursday afternoon when my best friend telephone to ask what was wrong. In response to my confusion to this question, she informed me that we had been chatting and that I had told her that I needed her. However, at the time of her phone call, I had just returned from teaching class, which meant that I was not chatting with anyone.

I quickly discovered that I could not access any of my e-mail (from both Yahoo! and Google), and began the process of regaining access to my own accounts. During this process, I learned that the hacker had sent an e-mail (purported to be from me) to everyone in my contact list requesting money from them due to a robbery and kidnapping in London. I receive about 12 phone calls immediately from concerned friends and family as well as a host of e-mails (which I obviously did not receive until later) inquiring as to my condition. While informing everyone I was not in London, and had not been robbed or kidnapped, I immediately posted this information to Facebook. As an aside, it is amazing how many individuals immediately checked Facebook after receiving the e-mail to ascertain my status. I believe this is an intriguing social commentary on the state of contemporary society.

The most annoying aspect of this is that I was forced to change all of my login and password information for all of my online accounts. When I sat down to make a list of these accounts, I thought that I had only a few account, but as I began to change all of these accounts, I began to add accounts to my list. When I finally finished, I realized that I have almost 40 online accounts of some sort. I spent the better part of six hours changing all of this information, and was surprised to learn that some of the changes actually required a telephone conversation with the company.

While I am incredibly hacked off at the annoyance and problems caused by the hacking of my e-mail, I am also relieved that to this point the hacker has not accessed anything other than my e-mail. I am now much more aware of the fact that regardless of the security measures that one takes (and I take them) there is no 100 percent effective method for online security. Thus, I persevere with my security protocols, recognizing that my accounts may be hacked again.

Health Care?

It is with great sadness I report that I have a sinus infection. I figure this out about 4:00 am this morning when I couldn't sleep because of drainage. I arose this morning and completed a few tasks about the house before heading off to the doctor's office. I arrived promptly at 11:55, and was called back to see the doctor at 2:15. After repeating the list of symptoms that I had already written down, informing the nurse of the medicines to which I am allergic (written elsewhere in my chart had she bothered to look), and submitting to temperature, pulse, and blood pressure checks, the nurse departed at 2:21 stating that the doctor would be in shortly. Fast forward to 3:05 when the nurse practitioner arrives. I'm not saying that nurse practitioners are not qualified to dispense medical advice as a whole, BUT this woman clearly had no business being employed by a medical office. After reconfirming all of the information I had written down and told the nurse (who wrote it down again), she proudly pronounced, "I think you have a sinus infection." I wanted to exclaim, "Really! I would never have guessed that - especially since I wrote it down, told your nurse, and then told you that's what was wrong with me!" However, it was blatantly obvious that such sarcasm would have been lost on this woman, so I chose to keep my mouth shut. When she asked if I had any final questions, I said, "Yes, actually, I do." I informed her that I've recently been reading about the male birth control pills that are currently in clinical trials and asked a variety of questions on the topic. She was surprised to learn that such advances in medical science had been made. The piece de resistance was when I (a communication scholar who took anatomy in 7TH GRADE) had to  confirm some basic facts about anatomy for this woman. My anatomy lesson for today: Men are generally capable of producing sperm throughout their entire lives, while women have a finite number of eggs. As I sat waiting to have my prescriptions filled (yes, apparently a trained monkey can write scripts) I began to wonder how I have reached the point where, without any medical training other than my own reading, my scientist best friend, and my 7th grade anatomy class, I can provide a more accurate diagnosis that a supposedly trained medical professional. What a waste of three hours of my life!